the shards left around the edges of the mirror
by Grand Phoenix
Summary: You are no better than everyone else. [post-Alive][No pairings]
**Notes1:** When I looked through this archive for the first time, I didn't think people would be shipping Tracer/Widowmaker right off the bat. I had thought it was a recent thing, especially following "Alive". I find the ship interesting...but I also find it just as much to inject some good ole angst and drama and MUH INTERNAL SUFFERING because why not.
 **Notes2:** I can't say I've personally experienced Overwatch, outside of watching the shorts and reading the comics. I was lucky enough to get into the last stress test during the weekend, but I was stupid enough to think it would extend to Sunday, so I missed out on it. If anything, I'll probably just stick to Heroes of the Storm as my go-to multiplayer brawler.  
 **Notes3:** If this wasn't obvious enough, this was inspired by "Alive". This is also the first one-shot/drabble/whatever-you-want-to-call it I've done since...2015; I don't consider the first chapter of "First Impressions" as a separate entity, as it eventually became an anthology for all the Sylvanas-centric stuff I put in there. It reminds me that I've been gone way too long for my liking.

* * *

You must hate yourself for letting him die like that.

In a way, one could say it was not I but you who killed him. My bullet was merely a means to an end. It could've been you it had taken. It could've been both of you. So long as it pierces my target, I care not for those who are caught within my line of fire.

But it never did go through you, now did it? Or perhaps it did—again, if you wish to perceive it from such an angle. So it wasn't intentional, it was all an accident, a spur of the moment. That could be easily forgiven...were I any other person.

Except I am not.

There is blood on your hands, girl. The weight of a life rests heavily on your shoulders. And why shouldn't it? In that moment, the two of us hanging in the air with our weapons drawn and aimed, you thought only of yourself. When that bullet was freed from its chamber, flying straight for your heart, your life was all that mattered.

Yours, and no one else's. Not even poor Tekhartha Mondatta's.

And look where it's got him.

Look where it's got you.

How does it feel, _mon cherie_? It leaves you…hollow, doesn't it? As you should be—you are just as responsible for Mondatta's death as I am. The depths of your actions, the possibilities you could've taken in place of the one that came to pass by your ignorance, clings to you, to your shadow, like a blind, writhing worm.

You are supposed to be a hero. An 'irrepressible' force for good.

Where is it now? Where is your bravery? Where is your passion? That witty humor? Did you leave those all behind in King's Row, when the streets were subsumed in the bloom of streetlamps and flash photography, thronged north to south with human and omnic preaching harmony and unity?

Well? What are you waiting for? I'm right here.

I tell you all this, wondering if you can hear me over the howl of the wind, but you do. You hear me very clearly. You let my words sink in and slowly, slowly, like the unraveling of nature in spring, your face morphs. The determination sloughs off, revealing the hidden truth beneath the latex mask—the fear, the doubt, the uncertainty.

The burning, hurting shame. The goggles fail to cover the slight shine in those eyes.

For just a second, you lower your weapons. Your stance loosens.

Once again, you ask me why I'm doing this.

You ask me…how I can be so cruel.

I make sure I shoot past your head. A single bullet whistles by your ear, taking off a few stray strands of hair in its passage. Whatever silent accusations you harbor, and surely you did, are erased in an instant.

You grit your teeth.

Good girl, I tell her. Very good. Don't you feel better now? Don't you feel more…alive? I'm sure you do. It wouldn't do to face death with a guilty conscience and a bad case of tunnel vision.

You glare at me, tighten your grip on the pistols. I can hear the leather of your gloves creak, watch your fingers twitch and slide up the barrels toward the triggers. Then they relent, falling away, rejoining their brethren.

Close. So close.

How disappointing.

You could be so much more if you just let go.

But not me. You cannot allow it to happen again. You don't want a repeat of last time, do you?

Your respond by leaping off the building across from me and disappearing in a blur of faded blue light, and in mere seconds you reappear above me, guns firing. Still you do not touch me, not even close, bullets peppering the ground at my feet, but my reply is reactionary and I leap away to avoid them.

You poor girl. You still cling to your idealistic fantasies.

What could you possibly hope to achieve?

Very well. Come then, dear. Come and catch me, if you can.

Just mind you don't get bitten. I would hate for you to fall so... _quickly_.


End file.
